Welcome Rosemary Joyce

We are pleased to welcome archaeologist Rosemary Joyce, who has joined the Berkeley faculty in a double capacity: Rosemary has taken over as the new Director of the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology for a five-year term, and she has also been appointed as an Associate Professor of Anthropology. First, the basics: Rosemary received her BA from Cornell, majoring in anthropology and archaeology. From there she went on to the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where she received the PhD in 1985. Much of her dissertation has been published in her book, Cerro Palenque: Power and Identity on the Maya Periphery (1991). Rosemary comes to us after having been on the faculty at Harvard; when we were fortunate enough to lure her westward, she was both an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department and an Assistant Curator in the Peabody Museum, where she had also served as the Assistant Director.

Rosemary has carried out extensive fieldwork in Honduras, and she plans to continue co-directing an archaeological field school there. In summer of 1995, this will be under the co-sponsorship of the Berkeley Summer Archaeology Field Program. Among the many aspects of prehistoric life in what some archaeologists mis-label as the "Maya periphery" region that Rosemary has addressed through fieldwork are settlement patterns, ballcourts, and residential compounds; she has carried out extensive ceramic analyses as well and has pioneered numerous survey methods for the region, including how to survey in banana plantations!

The publications and research that have resulted from Rosemary's careful scrutiny of Mesoamerican archaeology are far too numerous to be listed. Among her most recent papers is a 1993 article in Current Anthropology, "Women's Work: Images of Production and Reproduction in Pre-Hispanic Southern Central America." From just this title, one can glean some of her many special interests: art and iconography, gender, belief systems, social theory, household archaeology, and the study of 'complex societies'. Many of these interests are provocatively complementary to those of other archaeologists here at Berkeley, and numerous team-taught courses are being planned and scheduled.

While there is little doubt that Rosemary has brought an enthusiasm and a vision for the future of the Hearst Museum, she will simultaneously make significant contributions to archaeology at Berkeley. The ARF has already begun to work with the Hearst on a variety of projects of mutual concern, thanks to Rosemary's presence. Welcome Rosemary!

- Meg Conkey